1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the storage of recorded television signals representing programs, and in particular to the management of stored television signals representing programs.
2. Description of the Related Art
If a recording of a program is only partially complete, then it is often desirable to record a repeated version of that program so as to have the full version recorded. Some presently available recording devices are capable of automatically recording a repeated version of a program which has previously been partially recorded. In such a presently available apparatus, once recording of the repeated, full version of the program has been completed, both the original partial recording and the repeated full recording of the program are stored. This has several disadvantages associated with it. For example, enough storage space is required to store both the partial recording and the full recording. By way of further example, the user of such a recording device would be presented with two versions of the program for watching, which is potentially confusing and it could be difficult to determine which of the two versions to watch back.
It may be possible for the user of such a recording device to manually delete one of the recordings in order to save storage space and reduce subsequent confusion as to which version represents which recording. For example, the partial recording could be deleted. However, this is undesirable because it can be useful to be able to watch both the full recording and the partial recording. For example, one user of such a recording apparatus may have missed the entire broadcasting of the program, and therefore wish to view the full recording, whereas another user of the recording device may have seen the first part of the program, and then initiated recording, such that they only wish to view the partial recording. If either of the two recordings were deleted, then viewing of both the full version and the partial version would be extremely difficult. For example, if the partial version were deleted, then a user wishing to view only the partial version would then be required to scan through the full version manually to the point at which the partial version started.